mother of year. i mean it.

today i got my mom on and made cupcakes. let me just restate that so you can appreciate it fully: I FREAKING MADE CUPCAKES.

now let me help you understand that statement: i am a maker of food, yes. but a maker of cute food? no. cake pops? not my thing. so when i sit down and say, "let's make cupcakes and then let's dye some coconut green and make nests on the top of cupcakes and take cadbury mini eggs and put them in the nests." you know i'm bored. and that maybe i have extra time on my hands? and some weird spurt of creativity that's not getting channeled into anything?

this all thrilled ava to the point of nearly sending her into cardiac arrest. the whole time she was like, WE'RE MAKING NESTS IN THE CUPCAKES? WE'RE PUTTING CANDY ON THE CUPCAKES? CAN I LICK THE BOWL? and i was all, of course you can. and then she nearly killed me with her gratitude. and then i felt like i was the best mom in the world.

what a rush. no wonder there are all of those mothers making cute little sugar cookies every holiday. these holiday treats? they make your children worship you. and here i've been, all this time, trying to get ava to just put on her freaking shoes so we can make it to the doctor's office on time. all i had to do was be like, hey! what if we made a log cabin out of licorice and pretzel sticks to celebrate abraham lincoln's birthday?

instant mother of the year award.

so after an afternoon of a small daughter who put on a little apron with gusto and stirred and tasted and licked and exclaimed with great enthusiasm i was feeling like perhaps i'd solved a few of the planer's problems. and ryan got home and i greeted him at the door with a giant cupcake topped with a mountain of coconut and some cadbury eggs and i was like, GUESS WHAT? I MADE CUPCAKES! AND THEY LOOK LIKE NESTS! WITH EGGS IN THEM!

and ryan smiled and said, "great." except it was like, great, you did something normal. so i pushed that cupcake under his nose and emphasized.

COCONUT NEST. LITTLE EGGS.

and his face barely flickered with interest.

sadly, at this point, my interest also faded and i registered that my huge project, yielding cupcakes covered in food coloring and chocolate had turned my kitchen in to a disaster area. over the next hour of clean up and small children coming off of a sugar high, i remembered why i never got around to making that house out of licorice and pretzel sticks: my children's willingness to worship isn't really worth the effort it takes to get it. maybe next year.

pictures to follow. if i can muster the strength.

what came for me

it has arrived. long awaited, definitely and now that it's here i feel like it's been set in the middle of the hall and i trip over it every time i walk through: much like i trip over sam and buddha wrestling every morning.

sometimes when i think about being a mom i remember scenes from movies that are meant to be comedic; when there are wrestling, running, sticky, messy children and animals EVERYWHERE and the poor mother or overwhelmed visitor is trying to get by and they are stepping over people and things and being bumped against the wall to avoid catastrophe. . . that's how i feel in this little house of ours. every morning i feel as though there are hundreds of children and animals and they are running non-stop with their arms over their heads and screaming and i must somehow make my way around them without getting hurt. sometimes, if i am performing this task especially well, i will be forced to hold something like a basket of laundry or a crying child or a small cat that's about to have his fur trimmed by an eager child with scissors. sometimes, if i am doing that too well, i must walk the course while holding something and having something else hold on to my leg.

more than feeling any sense of outrage or frustration with this situation, i wonder, how do they do that? how do those four little creatures (girl, boy, dog and cat) multiply like that?

so the thing that arrived: it came yesterday and i have been staring at it all day. it was there at eliza's birthday party when i held stephanie's baby boy and he pulled his pacifier out of his mouth and with strict determination rolled it around and around near his tongue, trying to figure out how to get it back in. and i stared at it again when i watched brittany's sweet, sweet little baby with his big dark eyes and his adorable little curl on top of his head and i wished, wished, wished to take more pictures of him.

that's right: i'm baby hungry.

so ryan and i snuck away this afternoon to eat gelato right before dinner (thanks aaron!) and we were supposed to discuss a plan put forth by my chiropractor to cure the back my children have destroyed but instead i answered ryan's question of, "how will we pay for this?" with, "i want a baby."

and ryan raised his eyebrows, paused, and responded the way he responds when i say, "I want a kitten." he said, "you have a baby. his name is seth." (except when i ask for a kitten he says, "you have a kitten. his name is buddha")

and while ryan is correct, because every afternoon seth wakes up from his nap in a complete daze and i hold him on my lap and he rests his cheek against my chest until he feels more alert and then i ask him, "do you want a snack?" and he looks up at me, completely solemn, pulls his pacifier from his mouth and nods the most solemn nod you ever saw. also, he wears footsy pajamas. he sleeps with a blankee. i let him take a bit of a bottle to bed with him at night. he doesn't really talk much (that could be ava. she sort of uses up all the words in the room. no one really gets to talk with her around).

but at the same time, he wants to go outside and play with the other children. he wants to play soccer in the backyard. he wants to play fetch with sam. the other night he wasn't going to sleep in his bedroom. instead he was calling, "Mom? Mom?"

and finally i shouted, "WHAT?"

and he paused, then said, "more?"

and i sighed a deep sigh of frustration because FOR THE LOVE OF PETE CHILD CAN'T YOU JUST GO TO SLEEP ALREADY??? and i shouted, "you want more bottle?"

and again he paused and then he shouted, "yes."

and then i sighed another deep sigh, thrust myself from my cozy spot on the couch and went to his bedroom. where ava was sleeping and seth was standing and smiling and holding his bottle out for me.

i must be crazy. how can i live in the chaos which is my life, how can i attempt a grocery shopping trip which is so much like herding cats that some days i just won't go because i just can't muster the energy, how can i stand to add even more laundry to the abundant piles around me, how can i manage one more nap schedule, entertain one more person, hold one more hand?

and yet i have room for one more. somehow. somewhere. and i'm excited. i anticipate those little hands holding mine after eating a good meal and burping a good burp and seeing those first brand new toothless smiles that are random and so, so beautiful.

obviously, it'll be awhile. i mean, i'm not going to go out and get pregnant tomorrow, but at least i know i'm ready. and that i want it. and also, that i'm crazy. and perhaps, that i have a death wish. but really, is that any sort of surprise?

beach

yeah, yeah, yeah, you've heard it before: i love summer. i love the beach. i love photography. but i also really love that rayn was willing to take pictures of me so there is proof that i exist, that ava and seth wanted to go in the water and got completely soaked and that we got to eat trader joe's tuna sandwiches and oatmeal raisin cookies.

what a good saturday.

proud to be mine

so the other night at dinner, we had the missionaries over and we were talking about what time of the day we were born. "i remember what time seth was born exactly," i was saying, "11:58 PM. Just two minutes away from being born the next day," i looked over at that little naked man in his highchair, noodles on his chin, broth in is hair (making it stick up in a sort of haphazard way), and i just couldn't help myself, i started to gush, "and now he's here, my little baby seth," and then seth beamed and looked around at everyone who was looking at him and smiling like he was just so proud. like, yes. i. am! her little baby seth! 

man, this whole parenting thing can be so worth it sometimes.

sheesh, these two. am i right?

the cousins go to the zoo

mad that he's not driving

watching the koi

baby davis stomping in the mud

ava and davis on the train

cousins

davis crying and seth trying to hand her the teddy bear

as i look through my viewfinder, i see seth slowly lean back without changing his expression. next thing i know, he's flat on his back. perhaps a sign that he'd had enough?

davis' sign: she turned around

seth is actually digging something out of the wood AND EATING IT

set and ava have one cousin: her name is davis. and this weekend davis came out to visit with her parents, shannon and justin. since all three grandchildren were constantly hanging out together, kristine requested a picture. and we sure tried to give it to her.

at one point shannon and kristine were dancing wildly in the weeds, swinging their arms, laughing hysterically and singing, "a wise man build his house upon a rock. . ." and while ryan laughed and seth looked puzzled (you'll notice his expression doesn't change. i don't think he smiled once), i shouted, "RODGE! RODGE!" because the reflector was being held askew and there was shadow on seth's face.

remind me to never do that again.